Okay, so it's been a bit, but here's a partial list of books from the Groupees Bundle of Independents that I've already got or otherwise wouldn't mind parting with (I'll add more later; there are a lot). Let me know if any of you guys want any of these.
The Boys vol 1, by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson.
A pretty nasty sendup of the superhero genre starring a Simon Pegg lookalike, who joins a group dedicated to getting revenge on superheroes because superheroes are assholes. It's not my cuppa; I quit reading after issue 2, which features a scene where a Justice League analogue won't let a Wonder Woman analogue join the team until she has sex with them. It is not for me. But if you want a merciless superhero parody, this is one. And if you dig Garth Ennis, this is very, very Garth Ennis.
Chew vol 1, by John Layman and Rob Guillory.
One of my favorites. A dystopian supernatural buddy-cop comedy. Following a bird-flu epidemic (which may have been a false flag by the government), poultry is outlawed. The FDA (which has supplanted the FBI) enlists the aid of Tony Chu, a man who can read memories from anything he eats. By the end of the first issue, he's forced to (reluctantly) resort to cannibalism to solve a case; hilarity ensues.
Locke & Key vols 1 & 2, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez.
Another great damn comic. It's a supernatural horror book, and it starts out pretty rough, with a rape, a murder, and a very disquieting couple of villains. From there, our major characters, three siblings (two high-school-aged and one younger), move to their father's mysterious old house in the country, where they discover secrets that are both wonderful and terrifying. It never stops breaking your heart, but it
is a legitimately wonderful character study, about childhood, growing up, family, friends, honor, heroism, grief, and coping.
Parker vols 1 & 2, by Darwyn Cooke, based on the novels by Donald E Westlake under pen name Richard Stark.
Here's what I said about the series a few weeks ago, following Cooke's tragic and sudden death:
Thad wrote:For those not familiar, Parker is a classic series of crime fiction that started back in 1959; the books have been adapted to film multiple times but with the title changed at the author's request. (Point Blank and Payback are both adaptations of The Hunter.)
Cooke's adaptations (the first of which was done with author Donald E Westlake's collaboration prior to his death) take an interesting tack; they're monochromatic (first book all in blues, second all in yellows, etc.) and alternate between comics pages and illustrated prose. It's striking and it's different and I really like it; one of these days I'll get around to reading the last two.
I'm not quite sure how the "Gift" button works on Groupees; I'm guessing I fill in an E-Mail address and then you get a link which asks you to sign up for an account, but I don't know for sure. PM me your E-Mail, let me know what you want, and I'll hit the Gift button and see how it works.
More to come.